My friend Zach saw a tweet from photographer Ashley Gilbertson that he was looking for an editorial designer with experience in news design. I shot him an email and he called the next day to talk about this project. Gilbertson and longtime friend/ace videographer Timothy Gruzca started an agency called ShellShock Pictures. Their motivation "was born from a shared hatred of shitty, spineless advertising." With motivation like that, a traditional brochure wouldn't do. So we concepted and created a fake newspaper, The ShellShock Standard, that mocks Gilbertson, Gruzca, advertising, editorial photography, and serves as a great mailer to potential clients. The idea was to imitate tabloids, but make a real point: that everyone could use a dose of reality.

American Student Radio is a new student media venture at Indiana University. Students in broadcasting classes create pieces for the ASR website and post them for other college radio stations to use. The hope is that ASR becomes a hub for college broadcasters, where all colleges can share/remix media, have a place to report serious issues and have a respectful dialogue. They wanted a bold mark that would be instantly recognizable.

Made In the Now has one designer create a t-shirt each week about a specific news event, as voted on by their Facebook followers. They asked me to participate, so I created this t-shirt about Pussy Riot being sentenced to 2 years in jail. The simple type and imagery reference Soviet propaganda posters. You can pick up the shirt here.

My friend Tim Skaggs started this little event in Bloomington, Ind., called Code and Beer. It’s exactly that. A bunch of people get together, write some code, and drink some beer. I created this little logo and splash page for the event. It was my first foray into responsive design. I used the Foundation framework, and wrote the rest all myself.

The J-School turned 100 in 2011, and I worked in the school’s communication office helping to design and plan the event. My boss Kurtis Beavers and I tag-teamed the design work creating a Centennial Wall installation, a 100+ page book highlighting the history of the school, programs, invitations, schedules, posters, websites, tote bags, and T-shirts. It was no small feat. We wanted to respect tradition and honor the school we love so much. The office also undertook a daunting social media campaign posting 100 days worth of artifacts from the school’s history leading up to the event.

Grad student Valerie Aquila and Marge Blewett, editor of the Indiana Daily Student in 1948 and longtime placement director and resident J-School historian, wrote the bulk of the content in the book.

The event was a massive success. Alumni from the 1930s to the 2010s — nearly 85 years of the school’s history — were in attendance.

Photo Book

Redeeming Calcutta

Former National Geographic staff photographer Steve Raymer, now an IU photojournalism professor, and I worked together for more than a year crafting Redeeming Calcutta. Raymer made seven trips to Calcutta over a number of years amassing quite a collection of images from the once imperial capital of India. I’ve never been to Calcutta, but I feel like I know the city from these images. The final book is 208 pages chock-full of beautiful photos, painting an intimate portrait of a city most of us will never get to see. The 750MB PDF was shipped off to India a few weeks ago for proofing and printing and should be published this fall.

Mashable, a leading site covering social media and tech news, sent me a bulleted list of "by the numbers" stats, and I tried to make them compelling. The full graphic, in context, lives here. The graphic has been tweeted more than 3000 times, and has more than 1500 likes.

Portfolio

Contemporary Athletics

Cedric Hudson just graduated from IU with a degree in apparel design and is currently working at Adidas. He asked me to help him with a look book of his senior thesis — a series of outfits that he designed and created from scratch. Bought the fabric, made the patterns, and sewed it all together. I art directed the photo shoots with Zach Hetrick and created this look book for Cedric.

HowAboutWe.com has a hugely successful dating app that asks a users to complete a simple sentence How about we... . I've done three graphics for them about various parts of dating life. The best dating spots in NYC, based on data collected from the app; America's drunkest cities; and the top 10 things to not do on a first date.